A smokin’ hot concert?

It was great to see a couple of buzz-worthy bands coming to town that don’t normally make it here. Then I found out why, and my enthusiasm was tempered.

Monday night, the Black Keys are playing Sunset Station with the reconstituted original lineup of Dinosaur Jr. opening. The show just sorta popped up on the schedule a couple weeks ago — there was no big announcement or anything.

That may have something to do with the fact that the show is being sponsored by Camel cigarettes, which also sponsored last year’s visit by another buzz band I happen to like a lot, Kings of Leon. Some tickets for Monday’s show are available for $10 through Ticketmaster outlets, but you can allegedly get them free at www.camelsmokes.com if you’re 18 or older. I went to check it out, but it requires a login and member ID. Some things I’m not willing to do.

Just based on the music, the show is certainly worth checking out. Black Keys is a noisy blues-rock duo from Akron that went from doing yardwork around apartment complexes to putting out critically praised CDs. As for Dinosaur Jr., the band’s 1993 album “Where You Been” (made after Lou Barlow left to form Sebadoh) is one of my all-time favorites. And I saw them that year at the Erwin Center in Austin on a really strange bill. They were second-billed on Neil Young’s tour with Booker T. and the MGs; Blind Melon opened.

Back to the present, I’m willing to publicize the show somewhat grudgingly. At the risk of sounding impossibly old, I’m always amazed at the number of young folks I see smoking at concerts. I mean, the fact that it’s bad for you is beyond debate. Perhaps the only benefit of my having asthma as a youth was, I never had any desire to do anything that would screw with my airways. So I never smoked. Good decision, especially since I know lots of folks my age who’ve struggled mightily to quit.

So if you go, pay for your tickets if possible. $10 (plus service charge) is a bargain for two bands that don’t normally come to S.A. And it’s a way of telling Camel where to put its cigarettes.